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Pre-Season Friendly: Liverpool 0 Celtic 1

Amido Balde's first-half strike sent Liverpool to their first defeat of pre-season as Celtic ran out 1-0 winners in Dublin.

The Portuguese striker, who joined the Scottish champions from Vitoria Guimaraes in June, scored his second goal for the club after capitalising on a defensive error from Brendan Rodgers' side.

Balde latched on to a loose ball on the edge of the penalty area in the 12th minute and skipped past Andre Wisdom before firing home beyond Simon Mignolet.

From there, Liverpool laid siege to the Celtic goal but they were unable to find an equaliser.

With Celtic's Scottish Premiership campaign already under way - their scheduled league meeting with St Mirren was controversially postponed to allow them to play this fixture - manager Neil Lennon used the match to give some of his younger players an outing, and they defended admirably to keep their Premier League opponents at bay.

New Liverpool signing Kolo Toure thought he had found a way past goalkeeper Fraser Forster just before the hour mark, but his effort was ruled out by the assistant referee.

The Ivorian met a Steven Gerrard free-kick to head home, only to be pulled back after drifting into an offside position.

Jordan Henderson and Daniel Sturridge both wasted a good chances late in the game, Sturridge seeing his lob dropping just wide of Forster's post.

But for all Liverpool's pressure, they were unable to find a leveller, as they faltered in their warm-up for the opening Premier League fixture against Stoke City, while Celtic return to league action against Aberdeen on August 17.